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Meet Raven: Coming Full Circle. Life-Purpose: To promote individuality, self-responsibility and personal accountability. Philosopher / Healer / Philosopher Profile boss: Philosopher

"I'm unpredictable, and stubborn about it." True to her Philosopher profile Boss, Raven was born far ahead of her years in maturity, persistence, and curiosity. The only sibling of a compliant, well-mannered Empath, she was the one causing ripples in the peaceful ocean of family tranquility. "I shook things up, made trouble, asked too many questions." Just one anecdote from her childhood serves to reveal the inborn demand for autonomy that lies within her Self. When she was 8 years old, her mother wanted her to take piano lessons. Raven went to the initial sessions, where she learned that her instructor preferred Beethoven and wanted her to learn to play the classics. Once her insistence at studying music in her own way and at her own speed went unheeded, she simply refused to attend any lessons.

Balking at being force-fed unpalatable knowledge, Raven just applied her formidable intellect to teaching herself music on her own, when no authority figures were around to mold, push or prod.

Her adolescence found her running with a wild, rebellious crowd, determined to live her life as she saw fit in spite of anyone's expectations or demands. She found acceptance in her group of friends, but all that changed 8 years ago when a lifelong problem with recurrent migraine headaches became a chronic condition.

As a person now dealing with the debilitating effects of daily, chronic pain, Raven found her social life irreparably changed. Her life-of-the-party friends became scarce in the face of her new, "high-maintenance," needs. The disappearance of her social support and the realization of her differing priorities from those in her life launched Raven into a period of deep unconfidence, self-doubt, and reticence.

""I no longer wanted to waste what vitality I had on foolish adventures. I wanted to make something of myself, and use my painful situation to help others in similar predicaments. I realized that I had been sharing my life with people who ultimately proved that they thought self-responsibility was 'boring', and I didn't know who I could trust anymore. I felt alone, and became very skeptical of any new possible friend I met, always wondering if they would just disappear too once they learned that I'm not always available.""

During this time of growing reticence and self-doubt, Raven chose a career in forensics. Her respect for the autonomy of the individual still guided her choice, and she set herself a goal of changing the way victims of murder are viewed in the criminal justice system. That these people are still human beings with identities, and not just numbers to be autopsied, inspected for evidence and cast aside, became the message she strived to deliver with her work.

But when the realization came that this career choice wasn't fulfilling, that there still lay within her something determined to expand the lives of living people, to help them "become themselves in the best way possible," Raven began to look for other options.

A longtime fan of self-reflection and "picking my own brain," Raven turned to the Internet in a search for personality tests. Hoping to find a test that would yield her a deeper understanding of what might fulfill her, she found the Ansir web site. The test and analysis were eye opening, especially several aspects of her Profile In-Depths.

"As I'm reading over the Healer working profile, more and more of what I knew to be me but hadn't acknowledged in a long while was coming out, especially the parts about relating directly with people, and changing beliefs......I came to understand that working with only dead people and criminals wasn't going to be fulfilling."

With newly acquired Self-knowledge in hand, Raven found her way out of her Dark Night, began to trust again, and made a career change. She went into the field of epidemiology, working with Tuberculosis patients, a field where she is able to promote people-betterment from several different angles.

As a paleopathologist, she traces the history of the disease, studying the genetic changes in the bacteria, as well as the sociocultural treatment of the disease. In taking a holistic approach to the search for patterns, she brings her full intuitive power to the search for better means of treatment.

As a medical anthropologist, she works one-on-one with TB patients, some of society's most stigmatized individuals. She helps the patients assume responsibility for their lives by accessing the best means of treatment and medical care, and works on how each can increase their integration in society despite the often-devastating lack of social support found by these individuals.

Another aspect of her In-Depth that resonated deeply was the reference to Healers and Philosophers having "rich inner lives and strong imaginations," something she knows first-hand, drawing upon these profiled strengths in hobbies of writing and artwork.

And having found her way back to the confident use of those profiled strengths, Raven has come home from her Dark Night of self-doubt and reticence. She's found her way back to an adult life much more befitting the deliberately autonomous, fiercely independent child she used to be. Having found herself again, Raven has come full circle.

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